This course offers a clinical and theoretical training in a model of psychotherapy, the Conversational Model (Hobson 1985, Meares 1993, 2000). This is a psychoanalytically–oriented psychotherapy based on a psychology of self derived from developmental observations. Attention is directed to the “minute particulars” of the therapeutic conversation. Central to the Conversational Model, is the notion that the emergence of self depends upon the individual being provided an atmosphere in the therapy which is empathic and in which he feels understood. This is elaborated by exploring concepts of self, boundary formation, the empathic mode of listening, subjective experience, the development of affect, and use of language in development of Self. An Outline of the Conversational Model by Professor Russell Meares has been published in the American Journal of Psychotherapy.

The self-state and the therapeutic relationship are understood as being both expressed and transformed in the linguistic process of the therapy. The form of conversation as Script, Chronicle or Narrative (see paper this website) reflects the present functioning of traumatic memory systems within the therapeutic conversation. Audio-recordings of clinical sessions allow the examination of this process in supervision.

Concepts of Self are examined, using William James’ definition of Self as a subjective experience, the “stream of consciousness”, involving a dual consciousness of I/Me. Characteristics of the Jamesian Self include vitality affect, boundedness, coherence, continuity, ownership, agency. Self, in the Jamesian sense, is said to arise in the context of a particular form of relatedness, mediated by conversation. The first aim of therapy is to establish that form of relatedness that fosters development of Self. The lived experience of the moment, as the positive affective state of fellow-feeling, is central to this therapy.

The focus is upon a contemporary understanding of particular psychopathology as the disruption of the developing self by repetitive trauma. These disruptions in development present as Personality Disorders, Addictions, Eating Disorders, certain types of Treatment–Resistant Depression and Anxiety Disorders. The trauma is described as being held in traumatic memory systems and the task of therapy is integration of these systems into the developing self experience.

This framework contains the work of a number of different theorists. Important among them are William James, Pierre Janet, James Mark Baldwin, Hughlings Jackson, Jean Piaget, L. Vygotsky, C G Jung, Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, D. Winnicott, and Heinz Kohut.